What am I thinking?

As I sat here munching on my almonds as a snack to give me endurance for my swimming workout, I broke a nail and it led me to wonder what the hell I am doing.  I am training for a half marathon.  I must be crazy.

You see, it wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t already run a marathon before.  In 2003, I ran and finished the NYC Marathon in lightening speed and record time – 5:36:14.  That’s five HOURS!!  It’s ok though, because in all honesty it’s a miracle I ran and finished the damn thing.  I got accepted into the lottery in 2002 and postponed because I just wasn’t ready.  I started my training again slow and steady about 5 months before the race in 2003.  Seven weeks before the race I got a stress fracture in my right shin about a half inch long.  It worked its way from the outside of the bone inward and straight up.  Fortunately, I had a great doctor (Dr. Feldman) who wouldn’t give up on my dream even though I was PRAYING he would tell me to give it up.  He put me in a boot from week 7 to week 2 of my training and I cross trained with swimming.  I never got any further than 12 miles for my long runs, but I could swim like a fish – I got up to two miles a day swimming!

Race day came and my plan was to run three miles, walk two miles, run three, walk two until the finish.  I had an excel spreadsheet with my times broken down to the minute and second so my family would know where I would be at every mile for the spectator race.  This worked until mile 15 and then my feet started hurting like crazy.  I had Aleve stashed everywhere on my person and was taking it at every water stop expecting my leg to hurt.  They also passed out the 8-hour Tylenol samples (I have yet to actually see those in store — we were guinea pigs) and I ate those right on up too.  My leg never hurt probably because I had acupuncture before the race, but man my feet were in some serious pain.  So, I just decided to run the rest of the race from mile 15 on.  And I actually ran faster too.  I posted negative splits from the first half to the second half — probably because I ran the whole time.  This thought actually just occurred to me.

After the race, I went back to see Dr. Feldman and that stress fracture was about three inches long and I was back in the seksie boot.  In addition to that, I had another lovely fracture in my right sesamoid bone which is the ball of my foot.  That one is permanent and I can no longer wear pretty shoes with heels on them or stand on my feet for long periods of time.  What’s weird and probably attests to the powers of acupuncture is that my leg never hurt me during the race in spite of nearly splitting in two.  I guess I should have had her stick the needles in my feet too.

So, now I have a rotten leg and rotten feet, and I’m 5 years older and twenty pounds heavier.  Which leads me back to my initial question, what am I thinking?

How funny is this?